Reader Feedback Friday: Confusion in Redmond and the Decline of Open Source
The
apparent confusion
at the mother ship over the phrase "Vista capable" came as a relief
to Cori:
"How can I get in on the lawsuit? I have had software issues and
have already replaced my original hard drive that came with the laptop. My
husband, who is a senior program technical engineer for Coinstar, kept on
telling me, 'I don't know what you're doing, but stop moving all your files
around.' Of course, I'm not lame, even have 18 years of software sales experience,
so I am not the culprit of all the software issues going on with the laptop.
"I ran across an article about this less than two months ago, which
outlined the exact problems I was (and still am) experiencing. Who do I contact
to see if I'm eligible to be included in the lawsuit? Your article was such
a RELIEF to show my husband."
As for the lawsuit, Cori, we're not sure that we can help you there, but we're
glad that we were able to provide a bit of relief. Thanks for your e-mail.
Greg chimed in with some interesting numbers on open source after our entry
on how SMBs are sticking
with Microsoft. He says that the desktop market isn't the only place where
Microsoft is hammering its competitor:
"I always read open source articles with great interest. However,
I find that there is some irony in how everyone seems to think that open source
is growing in the server market. The last stats I saw for 2002 and 2006 for
market share showed that Windows server market share had grown from in the
40 percent range to 75 percent by 2006. This was at the expense of Unix and
Linux. I have not seen recent figures, but it certainly made me wonder whether
Linux will survive past the niche that it is in.
"I also saw stats for Apache Web servers, which during the same time
shrank in market share from 75 percent to somewhere around 40 percent. IIS
in the same timeframe grew from 8 percent to 36 percent. All indications are
that IIS will be the leading Web server before the end of next year. This
does not include Windows servers that are running Apache but certainly shows
the decrease in UNIX and Linux market share in the Web environment, which
so happens to be the niche for a lot of Linux servers.
"Anyway, maybe Linux will grow one day. For now, I think Microsoft
still rules the roost. I do think this shift in market share will also force
Microsoft to look for revenue elsewhere. Watch ERP and competition with Google.
Microsoft will focus heavily on these areas moving forward. I would be worried
if I was trading in these environments."
Greg, we're not 100 percent sure where you got your numbers, of course, but
we're inclined to believe you. And, as for ERP, we've been watching Dynamics
for a while here, and we'll continue to keep an eye on it. Thanks for your e-mail.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 07, 2007